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ROVI wins the Salmón Award at the Expansión-Allfund Awards

The Expansión-Allfunds awards brought together the collective investment sector on Tuesday to recognise the best funds and pension plans of 2021. In this thirty-third edition, the newspaper’s readers have awarded Laboratorios Farmacéuticos ROVI with the Salmón Award for the best stock market value of the year, highlighting the exceptional stock market performance experienced last year, with a revaluation of 96%.

The award was collected by Javier López Belmonte, Vice President and CFO of ROVI, who highlighted the great effort made in 2021, both for the manufacture of millions of doses to combat the pandemic and for having achieved approval in Europe of the first drug for schizophrenia based on the ISM platform. “All this effort has been rewarded by the market and we are deeply grateful for it. As you know, at the end of 2021 we will join the Ibex 35, reinforcing the presence of health sector companies in the index at a crucial time for society. The positive performance of the Laboratory’s shares on the stock market since then shows that ROVI is a solid company with a strong and solid future in which investors have confidence,” he said.

In her speech, Ana Isabel Pereda, director of Expansión, stressed the importance of responsible and professional management: “It is in situations of maximum market instability that professional management is most valuable. For this reason, these awards are Expansión’s recognition of the professionals who have to make important investment decisions in such difficult times as the present. Today’s award goes to ROVI in recognition of the immense work carried out by the pharmaceutical sector in the pandemic and, more specifically, for its direct involvement in the manufacture of the Moderna vaccine”.

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Internal mobility survey

As part of the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Inventory, ROVI has decided to analyse the GHG emissions corresponding to the journeys made by each of the company’s employees from their place of residence to their workplace in 2020 and 2021.

Help us to analyse ROVI’s impact on the environment in greater depth by completing the internal mobility survey.

IMPORTANT: fill in ONLY those workers who do NOT have a company car.

Take the survey HERE

You have until 8 April

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New surveillance and control strategy for COVID-19

In recent days, health authorities have established a new surveillance and control strategy against covid-19 after the acute phase of the pandemic in Spain which implies that:

  • For the general population, the compulsory isolation of both positive cases and those suspected of being positive due to mild symptoms compatible with the infection has been eliminated.
  • The suppression of quarantines are maintained in case of having had close contact with a positive case.
  • In case of presenting symptoms, it is no longer mandatory to perform confirmatory tests (self-diagnostic test or PDIA[1]) or to notify the channels provided by the autonomous communities. Diagnostic tests are restricted to:

o Persons who have any vulnerability[2] criteria.

o People related to vulnerable areas (linked to health centers, social-health centers, day-care centers, prisons, etc.).

o Cases with severe symptoms requiring hospital admission.

o Persons who have been in the last 14 days in a region where a variant of interest or concern is circulating.

This new strategy of the Spanish health authorities implies accepting a certain level of SARS-CoV-2 transmission as long as a sufficiently high level of general vaccination has been achieved to minimize the severity of infections that may occur. For this reason, this new strategy makes it necessary to modify the case management established by ROVI so that, as of next Monday, March 28:

  • Employees will no longer report SARS-CoV2 infections or suspected SARS-CoV2 infections to ROVI.
  • The notificacionescovid19@rovi.es mailbox will be disabled.
  • Persons with symptoms consistent with covid-19 infection should contact their health center and follow their physician’s instructions. In case of sick leave, it will be processed through the usual channels through HR and, as in the case of common illness, they shall no communicate the origin of the illness causing the sick leave.

In addition, we will maintain until further notice the current 50% attendance rate for office personnel, as well as the mandatory use of masks at the workstation and the minimum separation of 1.5 meters between workstations.

As up to now, these measures may be revised if the indications of the health authorities are modified.

Thank you and best regards,

[1]Diagnostic Test for Active SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PCR or rapid test for detection of SARS-CoV-2 antigen, both in nasopharyngeal exudate).

[2] Vulnerability criteria are considered:

– Persons aged 60 years or older.

– Immunosuppressed persons due to intrinsic or extrinsic causes (hematopoietic progenitor transplant recipients or CAR-T, within two years after transplantation/treatment, on immunosuppressive treatment or who have graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), regardless of time since transplantation; solid organ transplant recipients (less than two years or on immunosuppressive treatment for rejection events); primary immunodeficiencies:  combined and B-cell in which absence of vaccine response has been demonstrated; persons who have received in the previous three months (six months in case of rituximab) anti CD20 drugs or belimumab; Down’s syndrome aged over 40 years.

– Pregnant women.

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ROVI continues its commitment to the integration of people with intellectual disabilities into the workforce

For years, ROVI has been cooperating and collaborating with different associations in the inclusion of people with other abilities in the workplace. Thanks to its work with the Prodis Foundation and Down Granada, ROVI has participated in three projects to accompany people with intellectual disabilities in their process of adapting to their work at the Granada, Pozuelo and Madrid offices.

This adaptation process consists of three main phases:

  1. ROVI identifies the needs of the position and, together with the partnership, searches for a candidate who matches these needs.
  2. The candidate makes contact with his or her functions and tasks in the company accompanied by an employment mediator. This person helps to train the candidate ‘in situ’ and, in addition, provides support to his or her team at ROVI.
  3. As the candidate gains autonomy in the performance of his or her duties, the presence of the mediator decreases until he or she is periodically reviewed to continue his or her work of accompanying the candidate (who is already employed).

Javier Angulo, Director of Human Resources at ROVI, explains: “This accompaniment model provides us with a great deal of security for the companies, as it facilitates the transition to the real world of work for the candidates, and for the work teams it allows us to better understand the needs they may have for their adaptation. These young people show that, with the right training, they are perfectly qualified for employment. In this sense, at ROVI we continue to be committed to facilitating the integration of people with intellectual disabilities into the workplace, as we understand that this is an essential step for the development and autonomy of any person”.

“Thanks to our qualified team of labour mediators and professionals, the Prodis Foundation is able to make the Labour Inclusion Service programme a reality, thus supporting people with intellectual disabilities entering the labour market. This collaboration between the foundation and companies has been vital not only to help in accessing a job, but also to improve their quality of life and their real participation in society,” said María Gil, Director of Communication at the Prodis Foundation.

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For the second consecutive year, ROVI was carbon neutral in 2021

Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi, S.A. was certified carbon neutral in 2021 for the second year running. Attaining this important milestone was the result of the Group’s Environmental and Social Sustainability Policy and the effort made to reduce the environmental impact of all its activities, within the framework of its “Avoid, reduce, compensate” strategy

Juan López-Belmonte, ROVI’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “Our company has significant industrial activity, which makes us especially sensitive to the impact we have on the environment. For this reason, we apply a policy to control and optimise consumption of natural resources at all our plants and make important investments to optimise our efforts to avoid, reduce and offset our emissions”.

ROVI has four medicine production plants in Spain and, for many years, has been applying policies to mitigate the environmental impact of its facilities. Thus, as a company committed to a rational use of energy, ROVI has a specific line of work addressing the optimisation of energy consumption in the course of its activities. Specifically, the actions taken focus on:

  • Avoiding CO2 emissions to the greatest extent possible. For this reason, ROVI purchases renewable energy for the electricity supply required by the production plants, thus minimising the generation of emissions in the course of its operations. Hence, 100% of our production plants completely avoid Scope 2 emissions in the Carbon Footprint relating to energy acquisition.
  • Reduce consumption of key resources: the group checks and reports the water, electricity and gas indicators on a monthly basis and analyses any possible deviations. At each of its manufacturing plants, ROVI sets specific energy-saving targets and has a multidisciplinary team that defines, implements and monitors the actions needed to achieve said targets.
  • Voluntarily compensate for any CO2 emissions that it has not been possible to avoid or reduce during the year. The direct emissions that are offset relate to fuel consumption, such as the natural gas necessary for the industrial boilers or the gas cleaning system, i.e. the Scope 1 emissions when calculating the Carbon Footprint.

For a long time, ROVI been defending and applying its commitment to economic business growth that respects the environment, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, more specifically, Goal 12 of the Agenda 2030 “Responsible production and consumption”.

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Flexibilisation of COVID-19 measures

Following the evolution of the incidence of the pandemic in Spain and the gradual reduction of COVID-19 infections, ROVI will recover face-to-face assistance for employees in NON-industrial offices as of 7 March.

  • The return to the offices will be staggered and will start with a 50% attendance rate, that is five out of every ten working days will be spent in the office, with employees having to guarantee attendance at least one day each week.
  • We will withdraw temperature-based access control at our sites.
  • It will continue to be compulsory to wear a face mask indoors except when eating at the workplace.
  • We continue to recommend regular ventilation of work areas and will maintain daily cleaning of workstations with virucides.

All these measures will be reviewed according to the evolution of the indications of the health authorities applying to the workplaces and the evolution of the epidemiological situation.

We would like to remind you that, as of 7 March, any ROVI employee who:

  • Shows symptoms compatible with COVID-19 infection or has tested positive in a self-diagnosis test should contact the following telephone number of the Community of Madrid 900 102 112 or their health centres if they are in another community and maintain self-isolation for 7 days. You should also write to notificacionescovid19@rovi.es to notify them. If you receive medical leave, you should manage it directly with HR.
  • If you have been a close contact of a confirmed positive, you should write to notificacionescovid19@rovi.es for individual assessment.

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ROVI achieved operating revenue growth of 54% in 2021

ROVI reports the financial results obtained in 2021, a historic year for the group in terms of the figures achieved and the capabilities it demonstrated to adapt to the needs of the pandemic.

ROVI achieved operating revenue growth of 54% compared to 2020. This result was mainly driven by the strength of the contract manufacturing organization business, which grew by 189% and by the specialty pharmaceutical business, where sales rose 17%.

Net profit totalled 153.1 million, 151% up on the preceding year. EBITDA rose by 115% to 202.9 million euros in 2021, reflecting a 8.8 percentage point increase in the EBITDA margin, which rose to 31.3% in 2021 from 22.4% in 2020.

Sales of prescription-based pharmaceutical products rose 17% to 347.2 million euros in 2021.

Juan López-Belmonte, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ROVI said that “the 2021 results are historic for ROVI and demonstrate our company’s ability to continuously adapt”.

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Moderna and ROVI expand long-term collaboration for the next ten years

Moderna and Laboratorios Farmacéuticos Rovi today announced a long-term collaboration to increase capacities for the compounding, aseptic filling, inspection, labeling, and packaging of ROVI’s facilities located in Madrid, San Sebastián de los Reyes and Alcalá de Henares.

This new agreement, which has a term of ten years, includes a series of investments expected to allow the manufacturing capacity to increase across ROVI’s facilities in Madrid, Spain. In addition to producing Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, ROVI’s platform could also be utilized to service future Moderna mRNA vaccine candidates.

“ROVI has been a pivotal partner in supporting the manufacturing of our COVID-19 mRNA vaccine for countries outside of the U.S., and this long-term agreement expands our partnership and allows for further scale-up for future mRNA medicines,” said Juan Andrés, Moderna’s Chief Technical Operations and Quality Officer.

Mr. Juan López-Belmonte Encina, ROVI’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said: “We are delighted to expand our collaboration with Moderna and become a long-term manufacturing partner. At ROVI we are working to contribute all our experience as a high-technological-value contract manufacturer of injectables to the solution of this pandemic and we are confident of our ability to take part in the manufacturing of new mRNA candidates in the future.”

Moderna and ROVI are expected to finalize details of this agreement in the first quarter of 2022.

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ROVI receives the European Commission’s approval of Okedi® as a treatment for schizophrenia

Today, ROVI has announced that the European Commission has authorised the marketing of Okedi® (Risperidone ISM®) for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults for whom tolerability and effectiveness has been established with oral risperidone.

Risperidone ISM® is a prolonged-release injectable antipsychotic developed and patented by ROVI for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults for whom tolerability and effectiveness has been established with oral risperidone, since, as of the first injection, it provides immediate and sustained plasmatic drug levels and does not require loading doses or supplementation with oral risperidone.

This approval is based on the positive results of the pivotal PRISMA-3 study on the efficacy and safety of Risperidone ISM® in schizophrenia patients.

“We are very excited about the European Commission’s approval of Risperidone ISM® because we think our medicine will be able to contribute to the clinical management of schizophrenia patients. Likewise, we hope to launch the product in Europe in the second quarter of 2022”, commented Juan López-Belmonte Encina, ROVI’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Regarding other territories, ROVI filed the application for marketing authorisation of Risperidone ISM® with the United State Health authorities, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) on 24 November, 2020 and the dossier is currently being reviewed by the FDA. Recently, the FDA informed ROVI of a delay in making a decision on the grant of said marketing authorisation.